1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for dispensing and, more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to a method and apparatus for dispensing food products and food product concentrates, such as pizza sauce, soft ice cream, mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, soup, salad dressing, juice concentrates, and the like.
2. Background of the Invention
The viscosity of food products varies widely and ranges from relatively hard (e.g., soft ice creams) to semi-liquids (e.g., pizza sauce, ketchup, and mustard) to liquids (e.g., soups). Problems associated with viscous products or soups that contain solids arise because an employee or a customer typically manually dispenses such products. These problems relate to product remnant, consistency, quality, cost, cleanliness, and the like.
For example, ketchup and mustard usually have separate dispensers that each consist of a container having a pump. Although employees do not directly dispense ketchup and mustard, an employee must fill the dispensers when they are empty. This results in direct employee contact with both the dispensers and the food products. If the dispensers are not routinely cleaned or are cleaned improperly, an unsanitary condition situation arises.
As an alternative to the possibility of contamination, some food products, such as pizza sauce or soup, come in concentrate packages, therein providing sanitary product in a cost-effective film technology package commonly known as a soft package. Soft packages are routinely used with pumps, and work well with low viscosity fluids as they may be evacuated with an industry standard of approximately ninety two percent. However, viscous products present other problems because the product is not conducive to being evacuated with a pump. In such cases, the evacuation efficiency of a package with a viscous product is approximately seventy to eighty percent.
For a viscous product, an employee must open the concentrate package and empty the package into a large, typically open container. The employee then adds water and mixes the concentrate and water to form the final product. Then, as needed for final preparation or consumption, an employee or customer ladles the final product from the large open container. Thus, the final product can remain uncovered for long periods and employees or customers often contact the final product, both of which are unsanitary.
Manual dispensing of food products occurs because heretofore the cost for dispensers and operational costs of such dispensers suitable to dispense viscous products has been prohibitive. Accordingly, a product dispenser and a method of dispensing food product are needed that permit self-contained dispensing of food products and food product concentrates, such as pizza sauce, soft ice cream, mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, soup, salad dressing, and the like, while providing a high percentage of evacuated product, therein reducing waste.